At any given moment, there are 24 Global Positioning System satellites circling our atmosphere at an altitude of 12,600 miles (that’s 20,300 kilometers to metric system enthusiasts). They’re floating around up there, sending out information to monitoring stations and GPS navigation devices across the world.

But how does your TomTom receive that information?

Glad you asked. The starIII chipset from SiRF, a leader in location technology, is the backbone of the TomTom GO 510, GO 910, and RIDER’s ability to get a “view” of GPS satellites very quickly and pinpoint your position on Earth within a matter of yards. The chips “read” the signals the satellites are pumping out 24/7 and “talk” to your TomTom’s firmware which then “translates” that into the convenient displays you see onscreen.

What make the SiRF starIII chipset unique are its more than 200,000 correlators which enable the chip to read the satellites’ signals quicker and then relay that information to your TomTom, even in traditionally low signal areas like urban canyons and under dense foliage. Some current GPS chips may have only a few hundred to a few thousand correlators.

What does it all mean? Quite simply, quicker and more accurate navigation for you.

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